And the magician is Fernando Torres. It has been 44 years since Spain won the European Championship. 

One of the most talented teams in the world and termed as the big match chokers proved that they have the guts and perseverance to win a championship. Wow what a fitting finale to a fabulous championship. It was not Spain all together, Germany made good striking chances in the second half. But it was the strike from Torres in the first half that made the difference. I have always been a critic of Lensmann and he proved to be slower than the young spanish striker.

Spain did not win because they had god strikers, their mid-field play was the best in the tournament. It was proved by the fact that 6 out of top ten best passers in the tournament are from Spain. And who can forget Sergio Ramos and Cassillas with their defence and goal keeping.

Everytime a major championship happens, every football analyst talk about Spain being some force to reckon with and they consistently failed. But today it was the day for the Spanish and their oldest coach Aragones to realize their dream.

They have played wonderful football over the fortnight and they deserve to be the winners of Euro 2008.
Let the Spanish magic reign over football for some time…

Untill i get some free photos and videos… Check this official site for the photos

http://www.euro2008.uefa.com/photos/index.html

PS: Ballack’s jinx with major finals still remains. He has never won a major football trophy coming in to the finals. Its a record 5th time. Sorry Ballack its not your day, again.

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So its getting hotter and hotter, Ok Vetri at last i am giving credit to Germany for their wonderful

mid field play and keeping Ronaldo – Gomes in check. I always have fear towards Germany and it goes to infinite levels when they play my favorite team, It started from a very small age when i was about 8 and the 1990 world cup. I could not see Maradona walking out for a red card and Germany winning by a lone penalty. Last world cup too, it happened to Argentina ( although it was a mistake from Pekerman, taking Riquelme out). wished that Portugal wins the Quarterfinal and of course my favorite team jinx with Germany came true this time too.

The Truth is Portugal played badly and Germany played well. And ofcourse the last goal from Ballack pushing the defender was a typical of Germany. I don’t blame anybody for that because its part and parcel of the game. And we don’t need any technology stuff to break that. It keeps the charm of the game. But i could not see Scholari ’s face after that goal. He was just gesturing the same. And the irony of the whole story is Ballack is playing in Chelsea and Scholari will coach him next season…

The next quarterfinal saw croatia fighting it out with Turkey. When a player hits the cross bar or the post while trying for a goal, never hits the goal again in the match ( This theory was given by one of my friends) but it happend to Ivan Olic of Croatia. he had slew of chances and never found the net. This match was perfect for a heart patient. If any of them had seen this match, they would have taken a straight flight to vaikundam or heaven. Croatia hits a goal in 119th minute (1 minute before the end of the match) and Turkey equalizes in the injury time just 2 minutes after. Can you Imagine???? Ufff, i could not think about the emotions that would have run in the hearts of their fans.

That moment of madness led to the downfall of Croatia, i think they could not believe that they have been equalized and their focus were torn in to pieces. Except Srna all the top players miss their penalties and Rustu ( the old war horse, can you believe that he is 35,the saves he made were unimaginable) hitting the final nail in to the Croatian dreams.

No wonder their fans went on a rampage after the match…

I will miss Slaven Bilic ( Croatian Coach), the most expressive Coach i have ever seen. If you make the montage of his reactions, it will become the perfect drama and depict Croatia’s game yesterday.

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It was almost 2 Am something in the morning and i was ready to go to sleep because Portugal was already losing the match and Turkey was 1-2 down to the Czechs and i expected the strong Czech team to hold on for the next 10 min. But something made me to stay back and see the match.

Wow what a fight back. Everybody say Cricket is the Game of glorious uncertainties but yesterday proved again why Football is more interesting than a cricket match. I think it was 1998 world cup when South Korea nearly beat Germany by last two minute goals. And it was yesterday, when a captain showed why he is rated and loved so much in his country.

Nihat’s first goal was a mistake from Cech ( Czech Goal Keeper) as the ball slipped through his hands and a gentle tap from Nihat equalised the goal difference. For a world class goal keeper and one of the best in the world it was a moment of despair.

I still thought its going to be a penalty shootout between the two teams to decide the outcome. But it didn’t happen that way, a small mistake from the defenders,let Nihat hit a glorious ball to the far post, slamming in to the cross bar and it was all over for the Czechs.

But the great man called destiny never allows you to settle down so easily. The Turkey goal keeper pushes Koller on ground and referee signals a red card. Two minutes to go, all the substitutions of Turkey elapsed, Tuncany takes the goal keeper gloves for 2 min.

If Czechs had made a final thrust, it would have been different but they didn’t. Turkey went through the quarterfinals for the first time in a european championship. It was the day of twists and turns …I think we can expect more..

Check out the Match Highlights

PS: Portugal rested 8 players in the original team and Scholari checked his bench strength with Switzerland and Swiss capitalized to get a reconciliatory win over the Portugal.

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As i expected i could not write my review daily because of the lack of internet connection at my home. Now i have got it (after a long wait and fight with the airtel guys, if they don’t know about Mac OS, what i can do about it).Anyways lot has happened in past 4 days. The biggest upset yet, Germany was beaten by Croatia. Croatians were awesome on the field. I don’t know what was going on between the German middle order and the forwards. Incomplete passes, hasty tries and they deserved to lose that day. Portugal sailed in to the quarters and everyone came to know the reason why Ronaldo is rated as the best footballer currently. The final pass to Queresmo was splendid. 

Netherlands showed why they are strong contenders to the title. They opened up the French defense split wide open and four goals..Uff France was outplayed, outclassed and demolished. One moment of brilliance from Thierry Henry. The reason why he scored durin his Arsenal times because the whole game revolves around him but his national team doesn’t revolve around him. And he gets minimal chances to score.

Yesterday saw the Spaniards in to the quarterfinals with the late goal from David Villa, he is becoming a strong contender for the Golden Boot. And the Russians throwing out the Greek from the tournament.  Guus Hiddink team still has something in them….

Here are some goals from the week…

And i think i can do the review daily with the internet connection back in my home ….

I heard there was Cricket Tri series going on Bangladesh and India lost in the Finals. Sorry i didn’t have the time to concentrate in that and my interests are 0.00001 % when the Indian team doesn’t have Sachin in it. As Sidhu says ” Indian team without Sachin is like Kiss without the Squeeze”.

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Spain was one of the most underrated team in World Football just because they are known to be one of the big game nervous losers. I think their major tournament win came in some where around 1960s. Anyways this time around they look in ominous form.
The mid-field for Spain is god-send and with David Villa in this sublime touch, its going to be tough for the other teams. Spain was playing a team which put England out of the tournament and they were actually one of the dark horses of the tournament. But the Russians were looking helpless because of the excellent passing and swift play of Spaniards.

But you have to see how Spaniards play against teams like Italy, France and Croatia who bog you down and slow the pace of the game…

The other match saw the Swedish take on the defending champions ( ?) Greece. As usual Greece was trying play defence and banking on counter attacks but they ended up looking hapless. The best part of the game was two people coming in to form, Ibrahimovich and Henrik Larsson. It seems Ibrahimovich is scoring a international goial after 2 years (phew) and ofcourse he did it at the right moment…

Its going to be a wonderful contest when Spain meets Sweden because both play attacking, swift football…

And the goals

 
Spain v Russia Full Highlights Euro 2008

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This day was expected but not so early in the tournament… The orange brigade demolishing the World Champions. Was it the Italy which won the world cup, although they lost one of the best players before the tournament to injury, this team was looking like a bunch of disintegrated heroes ( like the Indian cricket team).

But it doesn’t mean that the Dutch was lucky, they earned their goals because of the wonderful play making the field and excellent possession control with crisp passing. What you expect when you have Ruud Van Nistelroy, Sneijder , Bronckohorst and Dirk Kuyt in your team with a young coach Van Barsten.

I was told that this is Italy second worst defeat in the history. WIll Donodoni fight back?

Check out the goals in this link…

http://www.goalcentre.com/netherlands-vs-italy-highlights-and-video-euro-2008.html

The other was a drub. A drub can be defined as a game in which one team just keeps on hitting goals or the two teams play out a tame draw like what Romania and the French did. One shot on target from the teams in the first half. They never even attempted to go near the goal. The only valid attempt came from Anelka, which hit the cross bar… A sheer waste of time for the Fans

PS: Vetri i am not demeaning the victory of Germans ( But you know i hate them).

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Day 2: The Day of the Polish…

Oh did i get it wrong ? Poland lost to Germany yesterday 0-2 but i still say it was the day of Polish. The two impeccable goals from Germany was scored by Podoloski, who is polish by birth and at the same time a Polish driver by the name Robert Kubica won the first race for his country and his German team BMW…Ufffff what a coincidence and if you start chaos theory explanation to this we will end up somewhere in the second world war…

Poland was not overpowered, infact they had a spirited performance yesterday and it was few offside mistakes which costed them the match. I thought the first goal should have been scored in 40th second by the Polish and alas it was a costly miss. Jens Lehmann was lucky and i think he should be retired.

The other match saw co-hosts Austria fighting it out with Croatia. Croatia didn’t seem to be the team which it was used to be. It seems little disoriented team and they lost lot of good chances. It was penalty in the 4th minute and a mistake Aufhauser saved the day for the Croatians. I think Croatia has buckle up with their performances as Poland will be a difficult team to beat and it makes it difficult for them to qualify.

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Wow what a start to Euro 2008. The first match saw the hosts Swiss and Czech Republic fight it out for glory. It was a tough call, to say which team dominated the match. Swiss created a lot of chances but ended up on the losing. The fiery czechs, seem to be defending but ended up winning the match.

Swiss with the home advantage and with host young players like Barnetto should have clinched the game easily. But the lack of good striker in the team showed up. But for the czechs its was Strevkos, made a wonderful last minute shot. The loss of their captain Robert Frei was a big one for Swiss. 

There were two instances when Swiss were denied penalties by the referee when Tomas Ujfalusi, the Czech Defender was hit by the ball in hand. Anyways its a close call…

The better team won the day.

Portugal Vs Turkey

What happens when you have World class defenders like Pepe and Petit, world class midfielders like Nani, Ronaldo and SImoa and a woderful coach in Scholari, you are branded as one of the favorites of the tournament. Turkey was  outplayed all together by Portugese juggernaut. Turkey should be happy that they ended up losing by two goals. One disallowed offside goal from Pepe, awesome free kick saved by the Turkish Goal keeper ( who else Ronaldo, man he has that ability shoot exactly in whatever angles you can think off), Gomes hitting the side bar and cross bar ( I thought he could not match Ronaldo with the passes,but he was unlucky yesterday). 

And the reason for saying day of defenders, because Pepe, who was denied the goal initially made his day with a little help from Turkish defender Asik and a wonderful run from Ronaldo with a pass to Maurinho and his little nudge to Raul (another defending midfielder) finishing it for Portugese. The only saving grace for Turkey is the wonderful goal keeper, they have who was awesome in goal keeping and both the goals were defending mistakes.

The Goals

So my favorite team has started with a winning note (atlast man)….

Lets see how the coming matches make it….

PS: When i am writing this review, Fedex lost to Nadal again. Nadal proved that he is the current king of clay ( I don’t rate him bigger than Bjorn Borg), Will Fedex prove that he is the current king of grass in Wimbledon ( Of course i don’t rate better than any other greats like Agassi, Pete, Ashe, Etc..)

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Let IPL go to grave. Its football time again in this world….. The Euro 2008.  Four years back one underdog team shocked the whole world in Portugal to win the Euro Cup. It was the golden year for Greece, which was not even in the bookies list stunned the whole world by winning the cup ( I dunno why till now hollywood didn’t make it a script..may be its coming). Portugal had the best chance of winning it last time, being at home and in the finals…oooo that was costly miss last time….

This time the biggest surprise is NO England (that means we can’t see some drama). It actually made England throw out Sven Goran Erikkson from the coaching job. Anyways i expect even more drama with some wonderful teams in the fray. We can see a attacking Italy ( the world champions who were considered to be more counter attacking team), a France without Zidane , always unlucky Netherlands (let the luck change for them), Portugal with charismatic Ronaldo (My favorite), last edition champions Greece ( should we expect another surprise this year too), ever resilient Croatia, another unlucky but heavily talented Spain, Fiery Czechs and the Germans (My personal hate)…And some more talented teams….

I think it would be easy for Portugal and Germany to move on to the next round because of their groups, to some extent for the Spaniards. But there is a mother ‘group of death’ with France, Italy, Dutch and the Romanians. I will be happy if Romanians some how make through because they are also one of my personal favorites ( Can we see another Hagi, wow what a player he was). This group of death going to be the talking point of this tournament. 

Another wonderful thing this time is that its going to be telecasted by ESPN-STAR, their world cup coverage was awesome and i hope they do even better job this time ( Ten Sports with 2002 world-cup was awful).

Let the best team win…

PS: i hope to give a a review for each day in my blog, lets see whether i can do it. 

Check out the schedule here…

http://www.euro2008.uefa.com/tournament/matches/index.html

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